9/22/2008

Mini Marvels: Rock, Paper, Scissor By Chris Giarruso

For a few years now in the back of Marvel comics we've been getting short, one-page cartoon strips called "Mini Marvels" that parallel what's going on in the Marvel universe, or just have these shrunken Marvel heroes going on silly little adventures. The digest trade of Rock, Paper, Scissor is getting a second printing available this Wednesday, and for ten bucks it's worth getting.

Even the cover of the first printing has a few gags, like Daredevil running backwards (cause he's blind, duh) and don't even get me started on the fact that each hero's hand is in a rock, paper, or scissor shape. I've gone CRAZY trying to figure out if it's just for fun or if it's implying who could beat who.

Some of the stories are completely brand new and others are continuity based. Unlike Tiny Titans it's less obvious what age the Mini Marvels are because they don't do child like things, but are simply immature people. The comic feels really pure to me in a way that something like Peanuts does, where the humor doesn't rely on fart jokes (not that fart jokes aren't hilarious) but gags and pranks, silly jokes for nerds like me who have been reading Marvel comics since they were five. It's also printed in "digest" format, which really means "manga size" so more kids will buy it, but I think it's awesome that way because kids like little shit for some reason. Like, you give them a toy car that's WAY smaller than a hot wheels and they are all over it.

Chris Giarruso's website gives you the sense that he really cares about these characters (especially Hawkeye, for some reason) and his site has a lot more on it than Marvel heroes and villains. The sketchbook area has a ton of crayon drawings of DC, Image, and Dark Horse characters. It also has a lot of characters he's created in comics you can purchase on the site. Giarruso does a really good job of giving you the characters you know, in his own way, without taking away from the personalities that we are familiar with. He also randomly throws in real moments, but not the sad kind, just the real kind.